


Never Neverland

by golden_kimono



Series: B.A.P Bingo Challenge [1]
Category: B.A.P, K-pop
Genre: AU, Age Regression/De-Aging, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-19
Updated: 2015-06-19
Packaged: 2018-04-05 04:34:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4166082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/golden_kimono/pseuds/golden_kimono
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Himchan tilted his head to the side and frowned as he regarded the young Yongguk, who was colouring in some pictures. “So he just woke up like this?” he asked flatly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Neverland

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [B.A.P Bingo Challenge](bapbingochallenge.tumblr.com), prompt: Magically De-Aged.

Daehyun and Himchan stared down at Yongguk, neither saying a word for a long time. Daehyun made to speak at one point, then merely sighed and placed his hands on his hips, shaking his head.

Himchan tilted his head to the side and frowned as he regarded the young Yongguk, who was colouring in some pictures. “So he just woke up like this?” he asked flatly.

“Yes,” Daehyun sighed, the exasperation in his voice showing that this had been a long discussion. “I told you this already! He was fine last night, I woke up and this happened.”

They watched Yongguk until he tried to waddle away, which was when Himchan hurried over and lifted him into his arms, toddler Yongguk immediately trying to wrap his little arms around his neck.

“It just doesn’t make sense,” Himchan whined as he stroked Yongguk’s hair. If it wasn’t for the fact that the child was a spitting image of Yongguk and that there was no way a child could even be in their apartment, he probably wouldn’t have believed it. “You can’t just… age in reverse. Definitely not overnight; even Benjamin Button took more than a few hours.”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Daehyun said tiredly, pulling a face when Yongguk looked his way to make him giggle. It sounded especially strange since even at such a young age, Yongguk already had a deeper voice than most. “At least he seems old enough not to need diapers anymore, because there’s no way I was handling that.”

Himchan made a choking noise and gave Daehyun a dirty look. “Thanks for the mental images.” He looked at Yongguk again and smiled when the other gazed at him with wide eyes. “At least you’re cute,” he cooed.

Yongguk grinned and squeezed Himchan’s cheeks together. “Pretty!”

“Man, he’s more direct as a baby than as an adult,” Daehyun said, sounding impressed. “What happened?”

Himchan shrugged. “Kids don’t care, do they?” His voice was muffled from Yongguk still squishing his face. “All I want to know is how he turned into this.”

“And how to turn him back,” Daehyun added. Yongguk as a child forever was… well, terrifying. “What do we tell his work? His family? Our friends?”

Himchan shook his head and sat down, Yongguk on his lap. When Daehyun had told him to hurry home from visiting his parents, he had been expecting something along the lines of “the microwave exploded again”, not “Yongguk lost twenty years of his life”.

“We’ll say he’s ill,” he decided. “Nothing too serious, but contagious enough that they’ll stay away while we figure out how to fix this.”

“Wow, you just have all the answers, don’t you?” Daehyun said dryly. “I’m so glad I called you.”

“Hey, all _you’ve_ done so far is dress him,” Himchan pointed out, trying to keep the annoyance from his voice so as not to worry Yongguk, who was gazing at them both. “…Do I dare ask why you had children’s clothes around anyway?”

Daehyun shrugged. “Mum dropped off some of my old stuff a few weeks ago. Good thing too, because you have no idea how weird it was to wake up and see a child roll around in Yongguk’s shirt.” He paused. “Or to see a child at all, really.”

“Maybe we should ask Youngjae for help,” Himchan suggested. “He’s clever, he might know something.”

Daehyun stared at child Yongguk, who was grinning at him with a few teeth missing, and nodded. “Good idea.”

 

“So that’s Yongguk hyung?” Youngjae asked, looking down at the child standing between Himchan and Daehyun, holding both their hands. They had just finished telling him a brief version of the story and requested his help, now waiting to actually be let inside.

“It is,” Daehyun confirmed, squeezing Yongguk’s little hand gently. “We were hoping you could help us turn him back.”

Youngjae nodded thoughtfully, looked at them a little longer, and shut the door.

Himchan and Daehyun glanced at each other before the latter reached out to knock on the door again, not letting up until Youngjae finally reappeared to glare at them both.

“I don’t know what you’re up to, all I ask is that you leave me out of it,” he snapped. His eyes fell on Yongguk. “And oh dear god, please tell me you didn’t kidnap this kid.”

“Look, I know it sounds crazy,” Daehyun said before Youngjae could slam the door in their faces again, “but I swear we’re telling the truth. I went to bed with Yongguk, and woke up with a foetus beside me. I mean, come on, why would we make something like this up?”

Youngjae pursed his lips and frowned. He looked left and right before stepping backwards, his shoulders sagging in resignation. “Go on then.”

 

“Does he remember anything?” Youngjae asked as he watched Yongguk sit on the floor, playing with a Tigger plushie they had brought along quietly. “Or is he fully back to being a child?”

“He doesn’t seem to know who we are, but either his parents never taught him about stranger danger or he somehow knows he can trust us,” Himchan replied. He had to admit there wasn’t an awful lot he knew about Yongguk’s childhood, but it didn’t feel like the right time to ask his family for some stories, so guessing would have to do.

“Awesome,” Youngjae sighed, rubbing his nose.

“Is that worse?” Daehyun asked worriedly, backing away when Youngjae glared at him again.

“How should I know?! All I know is that it’d be a lot easier to find out what to do if he could tell us what happened, but I guess that’s not possible now.” He bit his lip, a crease between his eyebrows as he seemed to be mulling over options. “Are you sure this isn’t just a prank?” he suggested. “Maybe Yongguk hyung has a cousin or a nephew who looks a lot like him and he thought it’d be funny to mess with you guys.”

Yongguk seemed to sense their stares, as he turned his eyes towards the trio innocently before returning his attention to the plushie.

“He took a while to speak properly,” Daehyun mused, “which explains why he’s not speaking much now. What are the odds of another child having the same thing?”

“Besides,” Himchan added, “Bbang is more mature than that.”

“You’re right,” Youngjae admitted before grinning cheekily. “That’s sooner something Daehyun would do.”

“Hey!”

Himchan closed his eyes and pinched his nose, trying not to lose his cool. “Can you help us or not?” he asked, growing impatient with the situation. He understood it wasn’t exactly a run-of-the-mill problem, but he didn’t have time for Youngjae’s and Daehyun’s banter right now, as much as he usually enjoyed it.

“No,” Youngjae replied. “But Jongup might be able to.”

 

As it turned out, their friend Jongup’s obsession with Harry Potter had made him turn to witchcraft and wizardy, which mostly meant he had been reading up on the occult. Of course it remained a shot in the dark, but perhaps he had read about a situation like this somewhere, or knew someone else who could resolve the issue. Normally Himchan would have scoffed at the idea, but with Yongguk being the way he was, he had to admit there might be something like magic out there.

Luckily, Yongguk was not a difficult child, although he was rather clingy. But Himchan couldn’t say he truly minded having him hold on to his leg or hide behind Daehyun, because it was the closest they’d ever come to being parents (he wished Yongguk could be there for it, as an adult, but that would kind of ruin the point because in that case there wouldn’t be a child to begin with; it was all terribly confusing).

Daehyun sat beside him on the settee, bouncing his leg as Yongguk sat on the floor in front of them, simply staring at an intrigued Jongup.

“What if he can’t help us either?” Daehyun asked in a whisper, to which Himchan could only shrug.

“Clearly part of him remembers you,” Jongup stated after a while, still visually inspecting Yongguk’s face as though it were the most interesting thing in the entire world, “or he wouldn’t trust you so much.” As Himchan had suspected. “Hopefully that means bringing him back won’t be too hard. But it won’t be easy either.”

Himchan covered his emerging smile with his hand, noticing how Daehyun was gazing at Jongup blankly. He had almost forgotten how vague Jongup could be at times and how much he loved him for it.

“I bought a book of spells,” Jongup said as he took a thick book from somewhere behind him and slammed it down on the table, Daehyun and Himchan leaning forward to see it more clearly. Yongguk appeared curious and reached out to touch it, but Daehyun stopped him quickly.

“No touchy!” he warned, holding Yongguk’s wrist in a gentle hold. “It might be dangerous.”

“Don’t worry,” Jongup said with a smile, “it’s only dangerous if you perform any spells.” His smile faded when Himchan and Daehyun glared at him. “But try not to touch it anyway,” he added swiftly. “You could get paper cuts.” 

He opened the book and flipped through the pages, the old book smell spreading throughout the room. “Junhong and I were looking through this the other day, and I’m sure we came across an age regression spell,” he explained. “There should be a reversal spell too.”

“Wait,” Daehyun frowned, exchanging a look with Himchan, “when was this?”

“Yesterday, I think,” Jongup answered, still reading through the entries in the book. “He seemed really interested.”

Himchan lifted Yongguk up to sit between him and Daehyun, as though getting him away from the book would help somehow. “Did he, by any chance, try to perform the spell?”

Jongup shook his head, then stopped and gazed into the distance. “He didn’t while I was there… But I did leave him on his own for a bit.”

The three stared at each other and at Yongguk. It was no secret that Junhong had the firm belief that Yongguk always took on too many responsibilities and that he wanted him to take a break, though Yongguk had always denied the need for this. If Junhong had come across such a spell, he might have thought it would be useful for Yongguk – although he probably hadn’t expected it to truly work.

Himchan sighed and resisted the urge to bang his head on the table. “Wonderful.”

 

Jongup, luckily, managed to find what appeared to be the reversal spell and performed it immediately, although he emphasised that he wasn’t sure if it would work or not. “And even if it does work, there could be side effects.”

“Yeah, yeah, we’ll see,” Daehyun said as they made to leave, Himchan helping Yongguk put on his shoes. “How long do we have to wait?”

“Probably as long as it took for him to turn into this,” Jongup guessed. “He should be fine in the morning.”

Himchan decided not to ask what they should do if he weren’t, because he had a feeling Jongup had no clue either. They’d just have to wait and see, and hope for the best. (And give Junhong a very firm talking-to, even though none of them would have expected the spell to work.)

That night they allowed Yongguk to sleep between them, Himchan and Daehyun on either side of the bed, staring up at the ceiling in silence as Yongguk drifted off between them, luckily without kicking up a fuss. Daehyun had grumbled earlier about how they couldn’t even cuddle, because it might be weird to child Yongguk, and Himchan could only hope the reversal spell had worked, or he’d be stuck with two children tomorrow.

The morning brought a very confused, but adult, Yongguk back to them, who seemed to have vague memories from the day before and was more than mildly horrified when he realised he hadn’t been dreaming.

“Was I… weird?” he asked worriedly.

“Well, you being a toddler was pretty fucking weird,” Daehyun replied from where he was resting on Yongguk’s chest, wincing when Himchan elbowed him.

“You behaved well,” Himchan added, running his fingers through Yongguk’s hair, happy to have him back to how he should be and more than relieved that the entire issue had been resolved. “You must’ve been the cutest child.”

Yongguk went to protest, but was interrupted by Himchan’s phone going off.

“It’s Jongup,” Himchan stated before sitting up and answering the call, figuring the other wanted to check up on Yongguk. “Hey, what’s up?” He paused and furrowed his eyebrows, shooting Yongguk and Daehyun a concerned look when Jongup’s panicked voice came through the phone. “…What do you mean Junhong’s a baby?”

Daehyun locked eyes with a shocked Yongguk and grinned awkwardly to attempt to lighten the mood. “At least he didn’t go back that far?”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure about this one, but here you go anyway. XD


End file.
